Biopreparate, Part 2

So, if Trump wins but the Democrats take the House, will they impeach him right away?

***

Quite an interesting Harris interview on the Shannon Sharp podcast. Harris said, among many strange things, that the GI Bill excluded Blacks from participation and that Trump favors overtime work without pay.

The mendacity of this campaign is stunning.

***

Biopreparate, Part 2

The Russian site called Sergiev Posad-6 had been quiet for decades, but it had a notorious Cold War past: It had once been a major research center for biological weapons, with a history of experiments with the viruses that cause smallpox, Ebola, and hemorrhagic fevers.

Satellite imagery over two years — collected by commercial imaging firms Maxar and Planet Labs — shows construction vehicles renovating the old Soviet-era laboratory and breaking ground on 10 new buildings, totaling more than 250,000 square feet, with several of them bearing hallmarks of biological labs designed to handle extremely dangerous pathogens.

The images showed multiple signatures that, when combined, indicate a high-containment biological facility: dozens of rooftop air handling units, layouts consistent with partitioned labs, underground infrastructure, heightened security features, and what appears to be a power plant.

U.S. officials and arms control experts, noting the secrecy surrounding the military facility, say they are worried about how Russia intends to use the new labs. “This is where they weaponized smallpox,” Duitsman said. “New technologies could supercharge the capabilities of a revived program.”

The Soviet Union used a similar playbook in justifying a massive bioweapons program in the 1970s and 1980s. Soon after the United States outlawed biological weapons and destroyed its Cold War stockpile in the late 1960s, Soviet leaders began putting tens of thousands of military and civilian scientists to work on an expanded program to weaponize diseases such as anthrax, smallpox and the bubonic plague. Russian defectors, including several of the program’s top scientists, revealed the existence of the illegal weaponization project in the late 1980s. Many said the work was driven by a conviction — promoted by Kremlin officials — that Western countries were making the same weapons in secret.--from WashPo

Grants

Poland has surpassed Russia in terms of the value of exports for the first time on record, according to new World Bank data for 2023. They also reveal that Poland has risen to become the 19th largest exporter in the world.

Poland’s exports of goods and services reached $469 billion last year (up from $433.7 billion in 2022), compared to $466.6 billion in sanctions-hit Russia (down from $640.9 billion in 2022).

***

In the Series' fourth game last night, Mookie Betts leaped at the wall in foul territory and initially caught Gleyber Torres’ pop-up in the first inning, but a fan in the first row with a gray Yankees’ road jersey grabbed Betts’ glove with both hands and pulled the ball out. Another fan grabbed Betts’ non-glove hand.
A nasty moment.

***

A 2023 study analyzed by The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler recorded "fewer than 1,000 noncitizen votes out of 3.4 million cast in the 2020 election in Arizona," or 0.0003 percent (assuming 50 percent turnout among registered noncitizens).

***

Since pioneering the first corporate purchase agreements for renewable electricity over a decade ago, Google has played a pivotal role in accelerating clean energy solutions, including the next generation of advanced clean technologies. Today, we’re building on these efforts by signing the world’s first corporate agreement to purchase nuclear energy from multiple small modular reactors (SMRs) to be developed by Kairos Power. The initial phase of work is intended to bring Kairos Power’s first SMR online quickly and safely by 2030, followed by additional reactor deployments through 2035. Overall, this deal will enable up to 500 MW of new 24/7 carbon-free power to U.S. electricity grids and help more communities benefit from clean and affordable nuclear power.-- Google

***


Grants

The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation minority staff (Committee), which oversees federal science agencies including NSF, analyzed 32,198 Prime Award grants NSF awarded to 2,443 different entities with project start dates between January 2021 and April 2024.

Committee analysis found 3,483 grants, more than ten percent of all NSF grants and totaling over $2.05 billion in federal dollars, went to questionable projects that promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) tenets or pushed onto science neo-Marxist perspectives about enduring class struggle. The Committee grouped these grants into five categories: Status, Social Justice, Gender, Race, and Environmental Justice. For the purposes for this report, “DEI funding,” a “DEI grant,” or “DEI research” refers to taxpayer dollars NSF provided to a research or engagement program that fell into one of these five groups.

By early 2024, that figure had risen to 27 percent.

One can only wonder about the value of a cost-benefit analysis of government programs, perhaps run by Musk.

China Energy

 

The New York Times yesterday revealed the simultaneously astonishing and unsurprising news that one of America’s most prominent gender-transition providers, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, has intentionally not published the results of her “multimillion-dollar federal project” on puberty blockers in minors — because she found that “[p]uberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements.” According to the Times, Olson-Kennedy “was concerned the study’s results could be used in court to argue that ‘we shouldn’t use blockers’” in minors.

***

100 Labour Party operatives had been dispatched from Britain to support Kamala Harris' campaign.

***

China Energy

Coal still accounts for about 60% of China’s power generation, despite a surge in hydropower earlier this year after abundant rainfall, which reduced the share of coal in the country’s energy mix during the summer.

But hydropower saw a sharp decline in September, which boosted the use of thermal coal for power generation amid surging power demand in the world’s second-largest economy.

China’s thermal power generation, which is overwhelmingly coal-fired, jumped by 8.9% last month, per official data cited by Reuters’s columnist Clyde Russell.

Total power generation rose by 6% in September from a year earlier as electricity demand has started to outpace China’s economic growth in recent years.

Power demand jumped by 8.5% in September from the same month last year, while year to date, Chinese power consumption also rose by a similar percentage, 7.9% year-over-year, per the data quoted by Reuters’s Russell.

Power consumption in data centers, big data, and cloud computing jumped by 33% between January and June compared to the same period in 2023.

NIL

Youth football participation steadily decreased for more than a decade after news about CTE started to break, but it is on the rise again. Roughly a million boys still play high-school football — twice the number that play either basketball or soccer — and it remains possible in much of the country to sign up your 5-year-old to be a linebacker. Most surveys of parents find that they understand there are risks but that they also don’t want to keep their kids from playing.

***

An official said on Monday the Neom giga project in Saudi Arabia is currently using one-fifth of all the steel produced in the world.
Manar Al Moneef, Neom’s chief investment officer.said the futuristic city will be the world’s largest customer for construction materials for several decades.
She told the Global Logistics Forum in the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh that the $500 billion project would be one of the world’s leading drivers of the global logistics sector in coming years.

***

English economist William Jevons observed in 1865 that steam engine improvements, which made coal use more efficient, did not reduce fuel use. Instead, these advancements, which made steam engines cheaper to operate, increased demand for coal even more.
This occurrence, called Jevon’s Paradox, could still happen today with energy consumption and AI. If AI could make energy production at least 15% more efficient, demand could increase as energy prices drop.

***

NIL

NIL is an acronym standing for name, image, and likeness. It has emerged as a way to compensate college athletes.

A NIL agreement is essentially a contract for the student-athlete to earn fair compensation for their time and effort. To market their likeness. A NIL agreement could also be an endorsement deal on a local or national level.

Where does the money come from? Collectives. A NIL collective is a group or organization, often run by boosters, alumni, or local businesses, that pools resources to provide financial opportunities to their specific college athletes.

For football, these collectives typically help players monetize their personal brand by facilitating endorsement deals, appearances, and partnerships with companies. Unlike direct pay-for-play systems, NIL collectives ensure that athletes are compensated for their marketability while maintaining their amateur status.

The top ten NIL earners are mostly quarterbacks, a few basketball players and, of course, Livvy Dunne.

Top 10 NIL earners

NIL 10 Rank

NIL Valuation

1. 1

   
   NCAASRShedeur SandersQB

   $6.1M

   2.8Mfollowers

2. 2

   
   SRLivvy DunneAll

   $4M

   13.6Mfollowers

3. 3

   
   NCAAJRTravis HunterCB

   $3.3M

   3.3Mfollowers

4. 4

   
   NCAASOArch ManningQB

   $3.1M

   370Kfollowers

5. 5

   
   NCAAFRCooper FlaggSF

   $2.6M

   899Kfollowers

6. 6

   
   NCAASRR.J. DavisSG

   $2.3M

   273Kfollowers

7. 7

   
   NCAARS-JRJalen MilroeQB

   $2.2M

   309Kfollowers

8. 8

   
   NCAASRCaleb LovePG

   $2.1M

   412Kfollowers

9. 9

   
   H.S.AJ DybantsaSF

   $2M

   432Kfollowers

10. 10

    
    NCAARS-JRQuinn EwersQB

    $2M

    303Kfollowers

Torturing Classics

Government EV-charging efforts have been targeted at “disadvantaged communities,” but those are the least in need of EV-charging stations. College graduates who make over $100,000 a year are the likeliest group of people to own an EV or be considering buying one, according to 2023 Gallup research, which makes perfect sense given their price. These people do not live in “disadvantaged communities.”

***

China has already exported cargo cranes, loaded with hidden listening devices, which are installed in US ports. "A great concern is that they could remotely operate these cranes, and therefore disrupt these port operations at critical times," says China expert Gordon Chang. The Chinese Communist Party could, in a crisis, use them to shut down all maritime commerce or drop shipping containers onto US vessels to destroy them.

***

Torturing Classics

Some peculiar themes have arisen in the English canon.

Drew Lichtenberg, "Who’s Afraid of William Shakespeare?" NYTimes, Oct. 21, 2024.

"Over the past five years, Shakespeare’s presence on American stages has fallen a staggering 58 percent. At many formerly Shakespeare-only theaters, the production of the Bard’s plays has dropped to as low as less than 20 percent of the repertory.

Over the past 10 years, as American politics and culture have grown more contentious, Shakespeare has become increasingly politicized. In 2017, the Public Theater’s Delacorte production of “Julius Caesar” depicted the assassination of a Donald Trump-like Caesar. The production elicited protests from Trump supporters, and corporate sponsors pulled their funding. Shakespeare is also under assault from the progressive left. In July 2020, the theater activist collective “We See You, White American Theater” turned the industry upside down with demands for a “bare minimum of 50 percent BIPOC representation in programming and personnel,” referring to Black, Indigenous and people of color. Though Shakespeare’s name went unmentioned, his work remained the white, male, European elephant in the room.

Given contemporary political divisions, when issues such as a woman’s right to control her own body, the legacy of colonialism and anti-Black racism dominate headlines, theater producers may well be repeating historical patterns. There have been notably few productions in recent years of plays such as, “The Taming of the Shrew,” “The Tempest” or “Othello.” They may well hit too close to home."

There's more. When I studied Melville years ago I never once encountered "imperialism" as a major theme. But here are segments of two academic papers on the theme:

"Moby Dick offers considerable textual evidence showing that the novel has strong ideological orientation and is extensively concerned with several major dimensions of the American imperialistic vision. A close study based on the theories of post-colonialism can best explain how Moby Dick has made efforts to establish Europe and America as the metropolis of power, and as the result comes into conspiracy with the American's national imagination of imperialism. Therefore, the reading of Moby Dick in the imperialistic context will explicitly represent the close connection between this canonized narrative and the imperialist ideology.
                                                  *
This study tries to show decolonization in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Melville applies some narrative techniques which closely match those of the decolonization process. The narrative has a potentially representative content which opens one’s horizons toward new sources of meaning and conceptual interpretation. The focal point, in this study, is to examine the decolonization level and its strategies as agency, abrogation, undermining and appropriation to see how tangibly these terms agree with the very context of the above-mentioned novel and to find out whether the purely abstract terms extracted from decolonization theory can be concretized in a practical form. Furthermore, this study aims at scrutinizing in detail the frequency and the possibility of the decolonization in the very fabric and texture of fictional narrative of the colonized nations in general."
                                                  *
"Moby-Dick, or The Whale is a novel famed for its multifaceted nature, due to the myriad of both literary themes and political views that critics can explicate from it. In this thesis, I will show how the novel Moby Dick, or the Whale can be interpreted in a manner that engenders nation and myth-building for the United States, in which the contemporary greatness of the nation makes up for the lack of an aggrandized past. Furthermore, I will attempt to show how the text uses critique of ideologies such as slavery, colonization, and imperialism (through the Pequod and its crew) to both criticize American ideologies and political agendas, whilst simultaneously (and perhaps a bit hypocritically) making use of the very same patriotic and nationalistic ideology and language it itself criticizes. In the thesis, concepts, and theories such as nationalism, community, nationhood, nation as narration, and imperialism are defined through the theories established by critics such as Anderson, Bhabha, and Said, as a means to engender a better understanding of what is meant by them when used in the analysis of the novel, as well as why these concepts are relevant for the thesis. As such, this thesis is another piece of evidence for the limitlessness of Moby-Dick, as it recognizes the vast openness of the text, that enables the myriad of interpretations, explications, and understandings of the novel. All of which adds further evidence in favor of the continued canonization and importance of Melville’s Work."

The zombie is always restless. And he never sleeps.

Sat Stats

In a few years, the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted. When that happens, Social Security benefits will be cut across the board by 21% — that is, unless Congress changes the law. Either way, changes are coming.--deRugy

***

With Trump proposing 60 percent tariffs on Chinese goods and universal tariffs up to 20 percent, we’re in Hawley-Smoot territory, and risk another trade war. That means higher prices for American consumers, stiffer costs for American businesses, and retaliation that could, again, torpedo international trade.--Tuccilli

***

Sat Stats

This year France’s Arianespace has managed to launch just one of the new Ariane 6 rockets made by its ArianeGroup umbrella company. It came four years late and hundreds of millions of euros over budget. SpaceX has already completed ninety-six launches this year, recovered and reused almost all of them, and expects to reach 148 launches by the end of December.
*
In 1990 America accounted for about two-fifths of the overall GDP of the G7 group of advanced countries; today it is up to about half…. On a per-person basis, American economic output is now about 40% higher than in Western Europe.
*
Has 'climate change' made hurricanes worse?
Just for perspective on hurricanes. Katrina cost .86% of GDP in 2005 and killed 1833, Harvey in 2017 was .68% of GDP. Andrew in 1992 was the most destructive hurricane to hit FL. That was 32 years ago and cost $25 Billion in 1992 dollars. There was one in 1919 that killed 600 people, 1928 that killed 2500 people, and the Labor Day Hurricane in 1935 that killed 400 in FL and wiped out the only connection between the Keys and the Mainland with a 20-foot surge and 185 MPH wind. All these dead and huge damage when a lot fewer people lived in FL. Then there was Sandy. In 1900 the hurricane that hit Galveston killed 12,000 people and destroyed much of the city.--Don
*
Musk has doubled his security.
*
3 billion people do not yet have the internet. It is estimated it will take another 5 years to get 1 billion of them online. That means there is a huge segment of the world that is falling behind faster and faster.
*
Goldman has just released a paper stating that stock market returns for the next several years will be minimal, 3% or so.

Fossil Fuels

For the first time since the Black Death in the 1300s, Eberstadt writes in Foreign Affairs, Earth’s population is going to decline. A lot.

***

The vast majority of Prussia, the founding father of modern Germany, is no longer part of Germany

***

Fossil Fuels

The West continues to distort its economies with EVs and alternative energy programs. Yet global electricity demand is surging, driven by electrification efforts such as electric vehicles, AI, and heat pumps.


However, renewable energy isn’t growing fast enough to meet this rising demand, leading to increased reliance on...coal. Despite advances in clean energy, coal consumption is at record levels and is projected to remain high, especially in China and India. Record levels!


This may highlight the uneven progress of the energy transition, with fossil fuels still persisting and dominant in certain power sectors. But if the objective is to eliminate fossil fuels within a certain time period, a partial result is not progress, it is failure. And that is the responsibility of the plan's creators.

Happy Birthday Earth One Day Late

In Harris’s home state of California, Democrats raised the minimum wage to $16 an hour from $12 in 2020. Over the past two years, unemployment among those ages 16 to 19 has soared to 19.2% from 10.8%, versus 11.9% from 10.5% nationwide. California’s new $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers has compounded the problem.

***

"Trump may be the source of the contaminated McDonald's hamburgers!"--NYT (Just kidding)

***




Happy Birthday Earth One Day Late

This is one of my favorite days of the year. Today is the birthday of the earth.

James Ussher was born in Ireland in 1581. His mother was Catholic but he grew up a Calvinist. He became a priest, was a well regarded academic and scholar. He became Bishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland in 1625 and continued so until his death in 1656.

But, while a powerful and influential political and religious figure, he is known best for his historical research into the age of the earth. He started with Adam. The bible records an unbroken line from Adam to Solomon. There were some estimates necessary because not all of the information correlates perfectly, and there is some guesswork from begat to begat.

After Solomon, more historical resources were necessary but good historic points existed up to the Destruction of the Temple. After this--the so-called Late Age of Kings from Ezra to Jesus--the Bible offered little help and most of the dates had to be taken from independent history. For example, the death of the Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar II, who conquered Jerusalem in 586 B.C., could be correlated with the 37th year of the exile of Jehoiachin (2 Kings 25:27).

He finally published his most famous work, the Annales veteris testimenti, a prima mundi origine deducti ("Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world"), which appeared in 1650, and its continuation, Annalium pars posterior, published in 1654. In this work, he calculated the date of the Creation to have been nightfall on October 22, 4004 B.C.. Probably at 6 p.m..

Before you roll your eyes, be aware that his estimates do not differ much from other such bible-based estimates of the time, estimates from significant thinkers, notably Johannes Kepler who estimated the birth of the earth as 3992 B.C. and Isaac Newton as 4000 B.C.. And Ussher was a very accomplished man; his collected works make up eighteen volumes.

The annoying and disappointing Stephan Jay Gould would write in "Fall in the House of Ussher" in Eight Little Piggies:

I shall be defending Ussher's chronology as an honorable effort for its time and arguing that our usual ridicule only records a lamentable small-mindedness based on mistaken use of present criteria to judge a distant and different past
Ussher represented the best of scholarship in his time. He was part of a substantial research tradition, a large community of intellectuals working toward a common goal under an accepted methodology…

So times change. Methodologies change. And brilliant minds work within their contexts. And some, despite their greatest efforts, will be remembered only for their errors.

Happy Birthday, Earth!

Musk on Regulations

Two men are in critical condition after being stabbed in the chest near Pittsburgh’s Mellon Park playground, authorities said.
Police were called at about 12:45 a.m. to the park along Fifth Avenue, according to Pittsburgh Public Safety.
They found three men injured. The third man was stabbed in the wrist. He was taken to the hospital in stable condition, police said.

*** 

Saudi Arabia is preparing to begin construction work on its next giga-project: a cube-shaped skyscraper big enough to fit 20 Empire State Buildings.
The Mukaab will be 400-meters on each side when construction is finished, which would make it the largest built structure in the world. The building will be the centerpiece of New Murabba, a community the country hopes will be a new destination within the capital city of Riyadh.

***

if Kamala Harris is as stupid as her critics claim, why does she have the Democratic presidential nomination and a roughly 50–50 shot of being the first female president in U.S. history? Do you know how many ruthlessly ambitious Democratic men and women have desperately yearned to get where she is? How many smart, tough, shrewd, often underhanded and cold-blooded pols have tried to claw their way up the greasy pole and fallen short?
And somehow this supposed dunce managed to do it?-rhetorical question from Geraghty

***

Musk on Regulations

According to Musk, he was once asked by marine officials to conduct a survey on whether the rocket could hit a shark during splashdown in the ocean.

"I got a bunch of nutty stories. SpaceX had to do this study to see if Starship would hit a shark. And I'm like... it's a big ocean. There are a lot of sharks! It’s not impossible, but it’s very unlikely. 

So we said, 'Fine, we’ll do the analysis. Can you give us the shark data?' 

They were like, 'No, we can’t give you the shark data.' 

Well, then, okay, we’re in a bit of a quandary. How do we solve this shark probability issue? 

They said, 'Well, we could give it to our western division, but we don’t trust them.' 

I’m like, 'Am I in a comedy sketch here?!' 

Eventually, we got the data and could run the analysis to say, 'Yeah, the sharks are going to be fine.' But they wouldn’t let us proceed with the launch until we did this crazy shark analysis. 

Then we thought, 'Okay, now we’re done.' 

But then they said, 'What about whales?' 

When you look at a picture of the Pacific, what percent of the surface area do you see as whale? If Starship did hit a whale, honestly, it’s like the whale had it coming, cause the odds are... so low. It’s like Final Destination: Whale Edition. 

And then they said, 'What if the rocket goes underwater, then explodes, and the whales have hearing damage?' This is real!"

Teapot sans Tempest

Oklahoma State leaders estimate that roughly 3,000 illegal immigrant marijuana growers are operating in Oklahoma, with about 80 percent of them under Chinese mafia control; they’re selling $18 billion to $40 billion yearly in pot, a ProPublica investigation estimated. Chinese women get trafficked across the border to serve as prostitutes for the men working the farms. And, of course, there's the weaponry.

***

“Inclusive Excellence” is becoming the new term for the tarnished "DEI."  

***

Teapot sans Tempest

Price gouging. FEMA misinformation. Health certificates. These are parts of Harris' meandering campaign as the incumbent for change seeks a theme. This iteration is "answers to unasked questions."

This election has had more lies than any other I can remember. Lying has defined the campaign. And no one cares. You can say anything, and suggest anything, without fear of challenge. And you can repeat it even after the lies have been clearly refuted.

Innuendo is the latest. Trump is giving "unhinged" speeches. He is "exhausted." His McDonnald's appearance was "scripted," as if it could be anything else.

Most alarming is the presumed motive. This kind of campaign must be aimed only at people who have no idea what's going on.

Revenant

Apparently, there was a pro-Trump chant that arose at the Steeler game last night but I did not see it broadcast.

***

Can you imagine the people behind the Harris campaign--or Trump's--monitoring speech in the public square?

***

Universities hoping to reclaim trust must do more than simply make political activism evenhanded. They must reclaim the pursuit of truth that alone justifies university education.


***

A US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement.

The company, Heliospect Genomics, has worked with more than a dozen couples undergoing IVF, according to undercover video footage. The recordings show the company marketing its services at up to $50,000 (£38,000) for clients seeking to test 100 embryos, and claiming to have helped some parents select future children based on genetic predictions of intelligence. Managers boasted their methods could produce a gain of more than six IQ points.

***

Revenant

(This got lost in the wash last week but here it is.)

A rescue. A reprieve. In our daily human slog, a real human achievement.

I'm sure everyone has seen this but it is still just amazing.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1845542074609004971

SpaceX's Starship rocket achieved a world first on Sunday during its fifth test flight, showing for the first time that the launch system may really have what it takes to change spaceflight.

The launch system includes a Starship rocket ship stacked atop a 233-foot-tall Super Heavy booster and stands taller than the Statue of Liberty.

The Super Heavy booster released Starship on its path toward space, then began to fall back to Earth. For the first time ever, as the booster descended toward the company's Texas launchpad, a pair of giant mechanical "chopsticks," or arms, snatched it.

The giant booster had returned to Earth in one piece. It was SpaceX's first attempt at the revolutionary chopstick maneuver.

This engineering feat is unlike anything ever seen in orbital-rocket technology.  

The feat brings SpaceX one step closer to Musk's goals of building the first fully reusable rocket system, slashing the cost of spaceflight, and, ultimately, making humanity a multiplanetary species.

Modern Research

Small liberal arts colleges are being put up for sale all the time in New England for shockingly low sums. Magdalen College in Warner is for sale for $5.5 million, is 129 acres, and all the campus buildings are included.

***

The IMF’s Fiscal Monitor on Wednesday will feature a warning that public debt levels are set to reach $100 trillion this year, driven by China and the US.


***

On the threatened dock strike. There were 50,000 or so ILA strikers but only 25,000 or so port jobs. That’s right, only about half of the union’s members are obliged to show up to work each day. The rest sit at home collecting “container royalties” negotiated in previous ILA contracts intended to protect against job losses that result from innovation.

***


Modern Research 

This is what is being turned out as a research paper now. Paul Novosad Sam Asher Catriona Farquharson Eni Iljazi 2 Oct 2024. (SES is 'Social Economic Status'):

"Unequal opportunity in the sciences reduces scientific contributions from the most talented individuals and limits the rate of human progress. We study unequal opportunity by collecting data on the childhood SES of Nobel laureates in the sciences. The average laureate grew up in an 87–90th percentile household. Access to opportunity doubled from 1901–2023, but remains highly unequal. Barriers are higher for women, but lower for Americans. Access to opportunity across countries is much less equal, and has barely improved at all. Cities with more intergenerational mobility produce more laureates from non-elite families, and more laureates overall."

So The Nobel Prize becomes a proxy for achievement. Socioeconomic status and the winners' parents are major factors in their development and these corelations apparently are proofs of elitism and disparity of opportunity.

One might think that the studies of such superficialities are an effort to avert their eyes from the deeper, severe, and recalcitrant causes of the real problems.

.

Sat Stats

Sat Stats

Taylor:

...government used to dominate funding for basic research, accounting for 70% of the total in the 1960s and 1970s, and for 60% of the total as recently as the early 2000s. But the rise in overall US business R&D spending has “basic” research spending by business as well. Now, it looks as if basic R&D spending by business is about to exceed that from the federal government.




On Hurricanes:

Norberg:

Norberg then noted that in the classical liberal tradition it is a given that “we don’t know everything – nobody does,” and therefore it takes trial and error, a discovery processs, to find out what works and what doesn’t. And this is risky and costly but necessary. Unfortunately, a risk-averse culture dominates “in many businesses and certainly in government,” said Norberg. “Many are so conservative they wouldn’t let anyone do anything for the first time.”

Nobel

Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. 

***

Even the national political press seems to be getting a bit exasperated at this, if only out of a creeping sense that she might blow the election to Trump, combined with a bit of frustration that she’s making their jobs harder in having to not only carry her water but fill the buckets themselves. Maybe Trump’s well-known flaws will rescue her anyway by Election Day, but if not, it’s going to be a long four years with a president whose only real interests are in culture-war hot buttons.--McLaughlan

***


Nobel

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences to three economists. The recipients are Turkish-born Daron Acemoglu and British-born Simon Johnson, both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and British-born James A. Robinson, an economist and political scientist at the University of Chicago. They received the award “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.”

in their 2012 book, “Why Nations Fail,” Messrs. Acemoglu and Robinson divide countries into two types: extractive and inclusive. In extractive countries, a small elite extracts wealth from the masses, whereas in inclusive countries, political power is shared. When governments are extractive, people have little incentive to produce. But the opposite is true when governments are inclusive, as people have property rights and can accumulate wealth.--wsj

And McCloskey''s minority report:

His [Daron Acemoglu’s] theory, which is both, fits smoothly with what people nowadays love to hear, on their road to serfdom—that good policy is super easy and that our masters are super skilled at doing it. The theory makes us feel safe, like children waiting to be fed. We don’t individually need good ethics, professionalism, or high political ideals. Mama and Papa State take care of all that.

Interview

 

For the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in drug overdose deaths across the U.S.

*** 

In 1969, Joshua Lederberg, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist, warned that the proliferation of biological weapons would be like making “hydrogen bombs available at the supermarket.” Biological weapons confound the Cold War paradigm of deterrence because those releasing them can evade detection and hence retaliation.--Will

***


Interview

Harris' interview on Fox last night was revealing. She was short-tempered, rigid, and hostile. It was easy to see why she has such difficulty holding on to personnel. Some of this may be exaggerated by the emptiness of her political history and the goofy, far-left positions she has adopted in the past; she starts all political discussions on her heels. But this was a fragile, brittle candidate who might be no more attractive personally than Trump himself.

After, Baer discussed the backstory of the interview. Harris was 15 minutes late for the interview. They knew Baer had a deadline where the interview would be aired minutes afterward and they knew the delay would disrupt Baer and his broadcast.

Nothing they do is honest or straightforward.

Anti-Americanism

The average student accepted at Hillsdale College had a 3.95 GPA in high school.

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Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, is working on a law that aims to ban so-called child-free ideology which it sees as harmful to traditional values.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, announced recently that fines for “propaganda of childlessness” will amount to up to 400,000 rubles ($4,300; €3,879) for individuals and up to 5 million rubles for companies.

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Anti-Americanism

In this time of hostility to America and its creation as the country itself struggles with the significance of Columbus Day, here is an event that fits right in.

This is culled from several sources, much Politico, and is an amazing story.

The California Coastal Commission rejected SpaceX’s request to make 50 more rocket launches in Santa Barbara County.

The primary uses of these rockets are to deliver the company’s Starlink satellites, which provide commercial internet and telecommunications, as well as for military missions.

Despite bipartisan support from the state and backing of the U.S. Air Force, six commissioners voted against additional launches, clearly citing Musk’s public statements on politics. That is, a group of administrators--50% unelected-- limited the opportunity of a citizen because of his personal beliefs.

The Coastal Commission, known for its defense of public access to the state’s 840-mile coastline, has been sparring with the Air Force’s Space Force branch since May 2023, when DOD asked to increase SpaceX’s satellite launches from Vandenberg from six to 36 per year.

Things came to a head in August when commissioners unloaded on DOD for resisting their recommendations for reducing the impacts of the launches — which disturb wildlife like threatened snowy plovers as well as people, who often have to evacuate nearby Jalama Beach.

The commission ultimately approved the 36-launch plan at the meeting, on the condition that Space Force undertake seven measures to improve environmental protection and coastal access. But military officials didn’t commit to following them during the hearing, drawing fiery criticism from commissioners.

“Space Force came here and intentionally disrespected us,” Bochco said at the August meeting.

The two sides seemed to reach a detente heading into Thursday’s meeting after the Air Force, which oversees Space Force, agreed in September to meet the commission’s seven conditions, including reducing the sonic booms and increased wildlife monitoring.

A bipartisan group of state and federal lawmakers had also weighed in before the hearing in favor of the application, arguing that California should take advantage of DOD’s embrace of the commercial space industry.

But the goodwill evaporated after commissioners raised concerns about Musk’s political rhetoric, slammed the company’s labor record and questioned DOD’s contention that the launches should benefit from military permitting exemptions even if military payloads aren’t being carried.

“I really appreciate the work of the Space Force,” said Commission Chair Caryl Hart. “But here we’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and he’s managed a company in a way that was just described by Commissioner Newsom that I find to be very disturbing.”

Proudly rejecting evenhandedness, including a citizen's personal opinions in decisions of public policy, factoring privately held personal beliefs into government decisions--these are more than self-inflicted socio-political wounds, they defy basic elemental principles inherent in the nation's founding.